Untethered
by Today-Only-Happens-Once
Summary: [Spoilers for Endgame] Steve finds Peter at the funeral and tries to help. "'Hey,' he says again, a little louder. 'Peter, you gotta look at me.'"


**A/N: Because Endgame was amazing and emotionally gutting. So I wrote this. Hope you enjoy it! **

…

It's quiet. Everyone speaks in hushed tones, as if the grief blankets their voice.

Steve Rogers watches from the doorway, leaned against the side to be out of the way with his arms crossed over his chest. He watches as Happy Hogan brushes the hair out of Morgan's face before whispering something to her. He watches the way Clint hovers by his family and tenses the moment his son turns the corner into the kitchen. He watches Director Fury exchange a meaningful look with Carol Danvers.

He watches.

Victory isn't supposed to feel so much like defeat.

The house is quiet and remote. It's nearly the very opposite of what, eight years ago, Steve would have expected from Tony Stark. The man built a tower with his name on the side of it, after all. Subtlety hadn't exactly been a word Steve would have used to describe him when he and Tony had first met. In fact, he'd felt Tony's own criterion had been pretty spot-on. _Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist. _Though Steve hadn't been so sure about that last one.

But that was a lifetime ago. Steve would use different words now.

He feels someone step up beside him from behind. When he glances over his shoulder, Sam raises his eyebrows in a silent question. Steve unfolds his arms and slips them into the pockets of his slacks. He nods once. Sam's lips press into a thin line, but he turns and heads into the kitchen.

Steve sighs and glances down at his shoes. It's hard not to notice the empty space in the house. The spaces left from people that should be here; he misses them. Natasha's amused smile. Vision's careful, calculating stare. He never knew Gamora, but he also doesn't miss the lost look in Quill's eyes. It was one that still haunts his own some nights.

Steve feels a hand rest between his shoulder blades. When he looks up, Pepper Potts is beside him. She looks as composed as ever but standing this close allows Steve to see the dried tear-tracks and dark circles under her eyes.

"Steve," she says, her brows creased in concern. "Have you seen Peter?"

He pushes himself up from leaning against the wall. "I haven't. Why?"

Pepper's eyes flit over the room. "May said she hasn't seen him in a while and is starting to worry."

Steve nods his understanding. "I'm sure he's okay. Probably just stepped out for some air. I'll check outside."

"I… okay," Pepper replies distractedly. She blinks and shakes her head. "Keep me posted."

"Of course." Steve shoulders his way through the small crowd of people milling around the living room. He catches Bucky's worried glance as he opens the front door but offers a small reassuring smile before he steps onto the porch and closes the door behind him.

It's a beautiful day, really. The sun is bright. The breeze keeps the temperature comfortable. Steve is still getting used to hearing so many birds—the past five years had been a very different natural soundscape—but it's reassuring, in its own kind of way. A reminder that life had returned, even if some of it was gone, too.

It doesn't take long before Steve sees him.

He can see a figure down along the lake, pacing quickly back and forth. He keeps scrubbing a hand down his face or shoving them back through his hair. Steve starts down the steps when he sees Peter half-sit, half-collapse onto the ground before burying his fingertips in his hair and pulling at the roots. His knees pull up close to his chest.

Steve quickens his pace. "Hey," he says as he approaches. "Hey, Peter."

Now that he's closer, Steve can hear his shallow, fast breathing, and he wastes no time in kneeling in front of the young teen. Peter's pulled his tie loose and the top button of his shirt is undone. His eyes are screwed shut and he's muttering something that Steve can't quite decipher.

"Hey," he says again, a little louder. "Peter, you gotta look at me."

Peter opens his eyes. They look red and watery, but Steve sees the spark of recognition in them and considers it a good sign. Steve reaches his hands out in front of him with his palms facing up, to make himself as nonthreatening as he can. He speaks quietly. Evenly.

"Good," Steve says, encouragingly. "That's good. Can you take a deep breath for me?"

Peter tries. Steve can tell from the way the breath shudders on the way in. He releases it hard and fast but it's a start. Steve nods when Peter turns wide, terrified eyes onto his blue ones.

"You're doing great. Just do it again."

The teen nods and sucks in another breath. It still shakes. He still releases it too fast. Steve starts breathing with him, exaggerating his chest movement and the noise so that Peter has something to use for guidance. The teen's breath is still coming a little too fast, but it's something not quite as bad as the hiccupping gasps they were a moment ago.

"Peter. Can you tell me five things you can see?"

Peter blinks quickly a couple times before his gaze flickers up to Steve's and his brow pulls together in concentration. "The-the lake." He swallows. "Trees. You. Um…"

"Keep going," Steve insists gently.

"Grass," Peter says next. "The sky."

"Four things you can touch?"

"My… hair." Peter says it as if he hadn't realized that he'd been pulling at his own scalp. Slowly, he lets his hands fall. "The ground." He presses his palms flat against his knees. "My pants. The… wind."

Peter doesn't seem to be shaking quite as hard as he had been a moment ago. "Good. Really good. Now three things you can hear."

Peter's getting faster with his responses, too. "You. Birds. The, um…" Peter licks his lips. "The leaves, I guess?"

Steve nods. "Two things you can smell."

"I can smell dirt." Peter thinks for a moment. Sections of his wavy brown hair have fallen across his forehead into his eyes. He doesn't seem to notice. "And… food from inside, I think."

"One thing you can taste."

Peter blinks. "Copper." Steve's eyes widen slightly, and Peter flushes and crosses his arms over his knees. "Must have bit my lip when I was, um… It's fine." He trails off and averts his gaze. He brushes at the hair in his eyes but it falls back again. "You, uh… you were good at… at that."

Steve takes a close look at him. He's speaking in complete sentences. His breathing seems to mostly have evened out. The shaking has stopped. The storm seems, at least for now, to be over. Steve takes a breath and shifts around to sit beside Peter instead of kneeling in front of him. They stare out over the lake together.

"I've had a lot of practice," he replies eventually. He looks back at Peter. "You okay?"

Peter lets out a long breath, blinks hard, and shakes his head. "Yeah."

Steve huffs a humorless laugh. "No, you aren't."

"I just, ah…" Peter leans his head into his arms folded over his knees. He looks exhausted. "Y'know."

The corner of Steve's mouth quirks. "Yeah. I do, actually."

"You do?" Peter rolls his head to look over at Steve.

He looks out over the lake. He thinks he can still see Tony's wreath floating on the water off in the distance. "Guilt and grief are painful on their own but when you put them together…" Steve shakes his head. "Add flashbacks and nightmares on top of it, and some days I think the bravest thing we do is get up in the morning."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Peter pull his knees tighter and wrap his arms around them. "You said you've had a lot of practice with this kind of thing?"

"You could say that. When I got pulled from the ice, there was a lot of all of it." Steve plucks a twig from the ground in front of him. He turns it over in his fingers.

"Did it eventually get better?"

"It did."

"When?"

"Gradually." Steve glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "Every day I chose something worth getting up for in the morning. Something that kept me fighting. Somewhere along the way, for a long time, that reason became people like Tony and Nat." He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat.

He hears Peter sniffle beside him. "I just can't believe he's really gone."

Steve hesitates, swallowing. "I know."

He doesn't know what else to tell him. Steve had been preaching about moving on to a room full of grieving people for five years and feeling like a hypocrite because moving on had never been something Steve had been good at. Loki had been right when he'd called Steve a _man out of time_. When Banner had approached him about needed to get the stones back to their place in the timeline, Steve had immediately volunteered. As soon as most of the people from the reception had left, Steve would time travel one more time.

He already knew he didn't plan to come back.

"There's something else too," Peter says abruptly, like he's afraid that he'd lose his nerve. "That kinda made me… I dunno… freak out."

Steve doesn't reply, instead waiting for Peter to start speaking again. He glances at the teen out of the corner of his eye and sees his hands curl again. Steve watches a bird fly down and land on the surface of the lake. It leaves ripples in the water. Tony's wreath bobs up and down on them in the distance.

"I killed, sir."

Startled by the bluntness of the statement—the weight in the teenager's voice—Steve looks at him. Peter is already looking right back at him, his eyes big and haunted. He looks untethered. Adrift in a storm and desperately seeking an anchor.

_Tony had been that anchor_.

"We all did."

Peter's Adam's apple jumps as he swallows. "Right. I know. But… when I'm not thinking about Mr. Stark, I'm thinking about that. About how _I did that_. And it was probably necessary, right? But I hadn't ever done that before, but it was that or die and I didn't want to die, sir. And when I start thinking about this sometimes I get really hot and I feel like I can't breathe—"

"Peter." Steve says his name like a command. Peter stops and takes a deep, shaky breath. His sigh sounds angry or frustrated, and he shoves a hand through his hair again. Steve pretends he doesn't notice the tears that fall to the ground when Peter blinks.

"What if I don't think I can… do this whole hero thing anymore?" His voice sounds very small.

Steve licks his lips in thought and rotates the twig between his fingers. He looks absently at it as he formulates his response. "I think the world needs heroes like you, Peter. But it's something you have to choose for yourself." Peter opens his mouth, but Steve cuts in. "And you don't have to decide right now. I think we all earned a little bit of a break."

Peter laughs. It's laced with grief and exhaustion, but it still makes the corner of Steve's mouth quirk upwards. The teen brushes the back of his hand across his eyes and sniffles again. Behind them, Steve hears the screen door opening and closing. He glances over his shoulder to see May watching them from the porch.

Steve figures that's probably his cue. He moves to stand up.

"Wait—" Peter says hurriedly, and Steve freezes, arching an eyebrow at the teenager. Peter glances down, then back up at Steve. "Thank you." He rubs the back of his neck. Steve smiles faintly, but Peter continues before he can respond. "And I'm sorry that I fought you the first time we met, Mr. America."

Steve chuckles and pushes himself to his feet. He can see May starting to make her way down the steps of the porch and cross the short clearing towards them. "Call me Steve. It was an honor to fight alongside you this time, Queens."

Peter gives him a small grin. "You too, Steve."


End file.
